kind of stage of the school yard fight. seriously. we often see the two leaders square off like this on the floor of the senate. they just have a bigger audience this time and the stakes are exponentially higher than usual, but this is the kind of dysfunction that has led us to this point. what we are likely to see, as luke is reporting, the house come in. they can hardly stay out of town when the nation does go over the cliff. as seems increasingly likely at this point. and what we will undoubtedly see is a last minute flurry of activity, i'm going to go out on a limb, that will amount to a lot of approximates touring and covering of backsides to ensure the other side gets the maximum amount of blame. yes, there will likely be meetings and a flurry of phone calls, but the bottom line and luke has reported quite accurately, the house speaker is not going to put a bill on the floor that does not -- that runs afoul of the invial lat tenets.